This interesting article has some great examples of early inconsistency in the First Folio edition of Shakespeare. It then posits that Samuel Johnson's monumental undertaking of his dictionary standardized spelling in strange ways: why "humour" but also "humorous?" Why "honourable" but also "honorary?" Can you imagine the challenges in creating cryptic crosswords? Or maybe that's the point!
In America, Noah Webster quite properly suggested easy simplifications for the English language, which were adopted. Let's face it. That U is doing nothing helpful.
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| OGEE, look what I found! |
Regardless, today's puzzle has a clever twist on this: OHYOUAREBRITISH, spelling out the circled letters from the other three theme answers. Is it a misdirection that all three cities referenced in the clues have counterparts in the US?
Meanwhile, I could do without STYE as an answer, but I fear that ship has sailed. It's too useful a combination of letters. And I'm sure Mr. Ruff could not have forseen the current issue with Hantavirus when he put OUTBREAKS in the puzzle.
On the other hand, I love a sackbut, and TROMBONE is another fine instrument. As a Neurologist, I also like seeing ABDUCTORS in the puzzle. It is the lateral rectus muscle that abducts the eye, while the medial rectus adducts it. Useless information is my specialty.
- Colum
Excellent review. Very interesting information about the O v. OU variations. I must confess that I completely missed the OH (O) YOU (U) ARE (R) in the revealer. I feel like I miss a lot of the enjoyment of a puzzle when I do it online, but it's not really worth it to print out the Monday through Wednesday offerings, is it. I do almost always print the TURN puzzles. My favorite time of the week is often late Friday afternoon with a cold martini beside me and a freshly printed Friday on a clipboard in front of me. Anyway, yes, STYE is not an appealing unit of Crosswordese. It's also pretty hard to clue in any clever way, I guess. Maybe you, with your deep knowledge of the eye, could come up with something:) And does anybody really still name their poodle FIFI??
ReplyDeleteYour caption made me LOL.
ReplyDeleteGood enough theme (or shold I say enogh?), but once one fills in one or two OUR section(s), one can fill in the other ones, including the spread-out one, so that's a bit of a gimme, but it's fine for a Tuesday. STYE doesn't bother me, but it's probably just because it's so ubiquitous in crosswords that I hardly notice it. And as Anonymous mentions, the cluing is always pretty pedestrian. I, for one, never print the puzzle out. Even when I'm away, I'll solve on my phone, which is less desirable and always takes much longer because I'm old and it's a clunky way to solve (as compared with my laptop, where I can really fly along).
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